won't go home without you
by daughter-of-october
Summary: [Olivier Armstrong, Bendix Llewellyn] # Summary: And so they still function.
1. our cities of clouds

**_our cities of clouds_**

**Character**: Olivier Armstrong

**Summary**: She had a dream, once.

* * *

Even she had been a child once.

She had been silent, reserved but never shy. She had been slightly antisocial, only having one real friend she confided to. Her parents had never minded this. Their daughter was behaving properly in public and the friend was someone they could agree with, the heir of an old and rich family. He was the right person to deal with their often complicated and unfamiliar daughter because he had the patience and compassion of a saint. He was her counterpart because she was socially awkward while he loved people – and they loved him as well. They were as different as sapphire and emerald and yet, they shone together.

And so, she had spent beautiful summer days running over golden fields in the eastern area where his parents had huge lands and where they could play all day outside without ever having to worry about cars that might hit them when they went to get a ball that had rolled onto the street. It was perfect in her eyes. It had been her kingdom, the perfection of childhood where they laid on their backs as they stared at the clouds chasing over the blue sky.

In the end, he had been her first and only true friend because he had been the last one to bother getting past the icy walls she had build around herself to protect what was left from the so-called kingdom where no one died – too bad that her grandfather had died when she had been four, leaving a far too heavy and huge sword in her care.

When she had been an older child and then a young teenager, she had always dreamt of returning to the golden fields of the east where she had been able to laugh and dream all day long. This had become her dream, her vision.

Years passed slowly up at Briggs and one day, the friend arrived again. He wore the same blue uniform she wore, only having one star less on her shoulder. She smiled thinly as he handed her the report she needed to sign and for a moment, she wondered whether he remembered at all but when his green eyes flashed for a moment and the boyish grin returned to his face, she knew that he remembered.

And so she knew that he held out the hand for her to grab so that they could return to the kingdom where _nearly_ nobody died. And a part of her wanted to grab this hand because Briggs was so cold and she longed for the eastern sun where the sky was as blue as her eyes and where she could go outside without wearing a thick coat over her uniform jacket and the trio of shirts beneath.

But she would stay for another lifetime, for another eternity. She wanted to wave as he passed her but contained herself. He would go home and she would stay in the eternal winter because this was where she belonged to even though she loved the sun more than the snow.

And yet, he turned his head. "Dream well," he mouthed before he vanished into the snow.


	2. our houses of cards

**_our houses of cards_**

**Character**: Bendix Llewellyn

**Summary**: It is all falling apart.

**Companion**: our cities of clouds, dream a little deeper

* * *

He is a mess and he knows it.

He is pale and his heart is beating too fast as he returns to his office. His colleague raises her head to look at him and he sees himself through her own, soul-searching and empty eyes. It is pathetic that even Jade Tempest can see that he has reached the end of his wisdom because everyone knows that there is nothing she will do about it because she cannot help at all.

She shakes her head slowly and looks back at her report, skipping the obvious questions.

But he needs to talk with her because she has been watching and listening from the beginning.

And so they go again.

He knows that she knows what is going on when she signs the last report and looks at him.

"Tempest," he starts. "I got no clue what to do anymore."

And this is the truth. His knuckles are still white from the way he has grabbed the door handle as he has slammed the door shut and his palms are still sweating because he has rarely been this nervous. This is madness and he knows but he has never had a choice because no one chooses the person they love so much that it hurts. And it is eating him alive that he has loved his childhood friend for all those years, that he has never moved on from her. He has tried to hold her when she has left him behind but there has been nothing to grab at all.

He looks at his colleague who looks just the same as always – clenched jaw as best indicator for her weekly migraine, her typical vacant stare that it easily deceiving because her eyes always contain an invisible fire and more tears that she could cry in a lifetime. They are alike. They have both feelings for someone they can never have but she is one steps ahead of him because she has let go of all the pain love brings.

"Tempest," he says again before he corrects himself. "Jade, I can't do this anymore."

She finally focuses on him. "You are thinking too much about options that are not meant for you," she says stoically as always. "You are the only one who she likes, her only option. She will understand all of this at one point. You need to have faith."

He frowns. This is so typical for her. She refuses to let him give up on his painful love and he trusts her too much to disobey her. "Can't you at least smile when you speak?" he asks instead of questioning her faith in his pointless love for his childhood friend. "Seriously, you are far too serious … I have seen you smiling – it looks nice."

Once more, he wonders why life would have been so much easier if he would have fallen for her because he can understand her when she speaks cryptically and he can console her when she breaks down. All the questions are making his head spin and ache but he stays focused.

She smiles thinly as she speaks again. "It is good that you brought her up yourself because we got an order," she says. "Looks like your dad wants to see us in Central City."

He freezes because this is the proof that whenever he thinks that it cannot get any worse, fate finds some way to mess with him. He looks at his colleague and sees that she thinks the same, that she is not happy about this either. "Shit," he mutters.

"My opinion exactly," she says as she shrugs. "Well, on the brighter side, it seems like we will both benefit from the promotions the new Fuhrer is handing out like candy at the moment."

"What do they need us for in first place? We are doing nothing special here, do we?"

"We are part of the office for International Relations and with Kay's promotion to commander of the South-Western Headquarters, it is likely that one of us will end up in Central and that the other one will replace our favourite redhead," she says as she closes another folder.

"Jade?" he asks. "You are kinda smart, aren't you? Give me one last advice, will you?"

She genuinely smiles now. "I have been waiting for that sentence," she replies. "Alright, I think that life is far too short to question yourself all the time. Confess to her and get over with it. In the worst case, she says no and you can finally move on after all those years."

He nods because she is so right that it hurts. "You are right," he says. "In both points … I guess that this means that I will miss you soon as well, Jade, when one of us is in Central and the other one here in the South."

"I won't miss all the conversations about your beloved," she grins as she rises to store away books that have been on her desk for months. "But yes, you are a good colleague, Bendix."

"We will wait with the hugs and the tears until it's official, alright?" he laughs nervously.

"Yeah," she says because she has never been a person for hugs either.

"What will you do now, by the way?"

"I will celebrate that I am young and single for another few months," she says in the same stoic way she speaks in front of her superiors and so he cannot be sure whether she is joking or not. "I will dress nicely, go out, drink some whiskey and dance alone."

He winks at her. "But you won't go home alone, huh?" he smirks.

"I will do as I please," she says calmly before she chuckles. "No, I will go to bed alone. That works best for me – especially since I still get up at four in the morning. And maybe, I will learn how to breathe without hurting again. That would be nice."

"Why did you never try to fall for someone else?" he asks as he locks his desk.

She shrugs. "I tried, damn, I tried so hard," she says and suddenly, she seems small and vulnerable. "But there are no options left for me – I wasn't kidding when I said that I can only fall for people I cannot have. It's a miracle that I didn't fall for you under that aspect."

"Yeah, that's something that baffled me too," he said smugly.

"You are probably not by type."

"Yeah, I got no purple eyes," he winks.

She freezes. "I was going to say that your hair is not reddish enough," she says slowly. "But who are you talking about, Bendix? Who on this planet has purple eyes."

He is silent for a moment. "Lynn," he says then.

She is silent for a very long moment before she starts to chuckle. "So you … all those years, you thought that I liked Lynn?" she asks in surprise. "Well, I would never have guessed that you would assume this … but I guess that I see where you are coming from … I was really very Lynn-centred the entire time we were in the West…"

"You are not mad or anything?" he questions as he takes a step back from her.

"Not really, no," she smiles. "Like I said: I can understand why you assume this even though it still confuses me a little bit … I thought that I was obvious…"

"Martin, then?" he asks as he leans against the bookshelf in their office.

"Never," she says as she shakes her head. "He is black-haired, by the way. No, the reason why I cannot have the one I love is not because he is married or because he loves someone else. It is because he is from Aerugo and thus hardly a good match for someone who is trying to have a decent career and to make her family proud."

He understands. "We should both have more courage then," he tells her. "Who has the right to tell you that you can't have both, Jadelina Tempest? I thought that you were stronger than letting other people tell you what you are supposed to do and what you are supposed to do."


	3. dream a little deeper

**_dream a little deeper_**

**Character**: Olivier Armstrong

**Summary**: He will be still there.

**Companion**: our cities of clouds

* * *

There is pain in her side and she wants to make it go away.

Gasping and covered in sweat, she wakes up from another nightmare, another nightmare of seeing Buccaneer and others dying through Bradley's hands and so she sits up in her bed and looks around for her damn sleeping pills because she needs them to find her sleep and she needs her sleep because she has to go back to Central Headquarters tomorrow for another round of questioning. She knows that old man Grumman has an interest in keeping her out of prison but there are enough others who have no other goal that to see her handcuffed.

"Damn," she whispers as she figures out that her pills are missing.

She is not prepared for the sudden light from her favourite loveseat in the left corner of her room nor did she expect someone to be sitting there. "Looking for those?" a familiar voice asks.

"It's too _fucking_ early for your shit, Bendix," she growls as she considers jumping out of her bed to tackle him and to take her pills from him with violence because he is asking for this.

"Where are your manners, Liv?" he chuckles as he gets up. "I thought that you'd be _happy_ to see me – especially since I came to help you with your broken arm."

"I might have been happy if you had not broken into my house and my room at two in the morning when I have an important appointment the next day," she snaps as she tries to grab the pills.

He easily sidesteps her pathetic attempt to grab the bottle and sits down on her bed. "First of all, it is not breaking in when you gave me the key yourself," he says conversationally, "and secondly, you know that those pills are bad for you. And when I say bad, I mean it."

"It's not like I have much of a choice at the moment," she mutters and wonders when she has stooped so low that she has to explain herself to him of all people. He has abandoned her years ago, leaving Briggs for SouthCity, and she will not forget about this – not even at two in the morning because she is seriously sick and tired of his shit.

"Oh, in that case, I really have to tell a doctor I know personally to talk with you about the reasonable and responsible use of substances like this," he replies. "There, I brought water," he adds with a softer facial expression. "I knew that you might need it."

"Pathetic little me, huh?" she asks as she greedily grabbed the opened bottle. "When did you come back from the South? I thought that you'd stay there until you die."

"While you might have preferred this, I have still to follow orders and I was told to come back," he shrugs. "I heard you have gotten yourself in trouble with the law again. Do you have a decent lawyer already? Because I worked with a few down in the South – I don't want to have to visit you in prison since I can't do any surprise visits there."

She glares at him. "Mustang's cousin has a degree in law and I can stand her a lot more than him, I got her to be my lawyer," she says. "And now, let me sleep."

For a moment, there is silence before he rests his feet on her bed and leans against her headboard. "Go ahead," he tells her nonchalantly.

"Excuse me?"

"I fully intend to stay to make sure that you are safe," he says amused. "With that arm, you can't do anything. You need me, okay?"

She ignores him as she closes her eyes again. "Bastard," she mutters.

"You know I love you too," he says and then, she falls into a deep and pleasantly dreamless sleep like it is the easiest thing in the world because, damn, he is still the best sleeping pill she has ever met and she hates that she is on her best way to allow him the way back into her life once again because she should know by now that this will only hurt her again – and she is sick and tired of being hurt because this is seriously the last thing she wants to go through again.

And yet, in the morning, her first words will be 'Welcome home, Ben' because in the end, she will always forgive him because he is her oldest and best friend for a reason.


	4. time flies as the day ends

**_time flies as the day ends_**

**Character**: Olivier Armstrong

**Summary**: The shadows grew.

* * *

Silence reigns in her dark study as she stares out of the window where the shadows hide everything beneath black covers. On another day, she might appreciate this scenery but not today. It is one of the long evenings when she sits all by herself and feels older and lonelier than ever before because the silence forces her to remember.

_"You will not return to Briggs."_

She has passed the trial and will not be discharged and yet, she feels like she has lost because if she cannot go back to Briggs, where will this leave her?

_"You will, however, be in charge of the Northern Area … even though you won't care about that."_

Grumman, that old fox.

He may have prevented her from losing everything but he has made a pact with the devil and everyone knows that the Department for Disciplinary and Inner Affairs is the devil on earth. She has never liked this department in question – probably because they have been the only ones who have ever dared to stir up trouble for her – and she has known that they would think of a way to make her suffer but she has not expected this. On the bright side, she will not have to go into prison and she will be promoted to general in two years … and yet, this is no real victory because she has lost too much to say that everything will be fine again.

She snorts at her pathetic state.

If Bendix who has always been so much weaker, so much softer than her can make the sacrifice of losing her forever, how can she truly complain about losing one part of her power if she gains another, better and more important position in exchange? Then again, she is not Bendix who plays his games with a different perspective, always keeping a long-time goal up his sleeve.

She shakes her head.

_Bendix_, why is she thinking about him of all people again? Bendix with his silly quest to impress someone, Bendix with his assertive personality and his ways to make sure that he got what he wants to his own conditions, Bendix who has always been her one and only friend, the only one who has ever truly mattered to her. Bendix who seems to be _oh so very_ present right now even though she knows that he is somewhere in town, probably with his former partner who has also been her attorney. She is not jealous of people like Jadelina Tempest who look like the weight of their shoulders can break them any day but she cannot deny that she would prefer him to be there, sitting with her in this room and chasing the shadows away.

This is crazy – especially considering that she has a reputation to lose – and yet, she could never deny that he has brought both to her – the greatest happiness and the biggest sadness – because being the only one who has ever mattered and the only one she has ever … liked in a non-platonic way, he has been designated to hurt her more than anyone else ever could.

Soft footsteps on the hallway shake her out of her reveries and thoughts. She turns her head away from the window and looks at the man in question, mentioning towards the chair in her study. Even the almighty Ice Queen sometimes loathes loneliness and today is such a day.

The air is strangely heavy with destroyed dream and ambitions that have been broken like a snow globe that has fallen from a shelf and yet, she cannot think of a place where she would rather be because she feels complete and perfectly safe all of a sudden. This moment becomes all that matters because she can feel the life and the happiness he radiates and though she knows that nothing lasts forever, she prays to all deities she has ever heard of to make this moment of peace and serenity last a little longer.

She knows what it means that he had returned this early, she knows that this means that he will depart soon but right now, she decides that she will not miss him today and tonight because for the moment, she refuses to lose him. The idea of his departure, the idea of being lonely again – and she will be lonely after Buccaneer's death and Miles' decision to aid Mustang with Ishbal's rebuild – nearly makes her shed the first tears since her grandfather's death because that day, she has sworn that she will never cry again for someone or something.

She absentmindedly wonders whether Bendix feels it as well, the looming truth that nothing in life has been constructed to last forever, or whether he is a better liar than herself and that he can convince himself that a few things have truly been forged for eternity. But she knows that she will never ask him because a few things are meant to stay a secret.

For a moment, the thought what an onlooker might think strikes her but she throws it away because she cannot think of anyone who would be able to understand her and him because this is so complicated that she sometimes cannot keep up with it either.

And yet, as a sunray strikes his face, she sees the hidden truth in his eyes and suddenly, everything makes sense and the shadows of doubt and questioning leave her as the light chases them away. Because all of a sudden, there is no reason for her to worry because Bendix will not leave her and she feels how an unknown inner calm and comfortable silence overcomes her.

No, there is truly no reason left for her to consider being lonely, being abandoned by him again.

He loves her. He probably always has and always will and this relives her and makes her happy because she has loved him as well for the longest time and now, she does not have to hurt herself anymore because of the feeling of being torn between her responsibility for the fortress and him.

She can choose for the first time in a long time and she chooses what she has always preferred.


End file.
